Accessible Media: The Need to Prepare Students for Creating Accessible Content

Media Law

Media law classes offer opportunities to get students thinking about accessibility. A good starting point is the Americans With Disabilities Act (1990; ADA), which required public places be accessible to people with disabilities. While people often think about ADA in terms of physical accessibility, it also required common carriers to establish voice-to-text service for phone calls—Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD)—to make phone service more accessible (Federal Communications Commission [FCC], n.d.). The same year, the Television Decoder Circuitry Act required most new televisions (over 13 inches) have built-in closed captioning decoders.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 fundamentally changed the communication industry, removing ownership restrictions, changing areas companies were allowed to compete in and removing divestment decree restrictions from AT&T successor companies. The act triggered a wave of industry consolidation and helped set the stage for Digital Television (DTV). The Telecommunications Act also solidified the groundwork for making broadcast media more accessible. It required television stations offer closed captioned programming and mandated telecommunications equipment be usable by consumers with disabilities. In addition, it also called on the FCC to explore ADs to make television more accessible to viewers with vision issues.

While the Telecommunications Act was being passed, a new communication system, the World Wide Web, moved toward adolescence, preparing to upend traditional electronic media. Both the federal government and the web’s creator, Tim Berners-Lee (Dardailler, 2009), called for designers to make the web more accessible. In 1998, the federal government updated Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act to provide specific standards for website accessibility and required federal websites be accessible. The web drew people to the Internet in a way previous technologies did not. Within a decade of its introduction, the web had become such a pervasive part of American life, that disability advocates called for ADA to include the Internet. 2010, proved a watershed for tying together the web and ADA. The ADA’s new Title II required state and local government services and programs be accessible regardless of whether programs receive federal funds, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) said it considered online services part of Title II, stating that “although the language of the ADA does not explicitly mention the Internet, the Department has taken the position that Title II covers Internet Web site access.” The same year, the Twenty-First Century Communication and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) mandated increased captioning of online video, requiring that material aired with captions should be captioned online, and called for an increased AD use.

In 2012, federal circuit judge Michael Ponsor denied Netflix’s request to dismiss the National Association of the Deaf’s lawsuit over the company’s failure to provide captioning, arguing that while ADA did not mention Internet-based services, “Congress intended the ADA to adapt to changes in technology” (National Association of the Deaf et al. v. Netflix, Inc., 2012, p. 8). Ponsor’s and the DOJ’s arguments that ADA should apply to the virtual world, including e-commerce, were the culmination of almost a decade of legal action by accessibility advocate groups, beginning with Access Now, Incorporated v. Southwest Airlines (2002) and National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corp (2006). Making media accessible is increasingly a legal requirement. As students move into the workplace, we need them to be aware of these laws and help ensure that they are not responsible for mistakes that could cause lawsuits against companies they work for.

Captioning

Captioning was the first of the legally required electronic media accessibility measures. Although captioning can include subtitling of foreign language material, captioning is generally discussed in terms of making audio and video accessible for those with a hearing loss. It includes not just the words being said, but inflection, ambient sounds, and, sometimes, just as importantly, a lack of sound (Zdenek, 2015). In the late 1940s, Captioning Film for the Deaf began adding captions to existing films; it became a federal agency by the end of the 1950s (Boatner, 1981). In the late 1960s, the National Bureau of Standards began exploring the possibility of captioning broadcast television (NCI, 2016), culminating in WGBN’s regularly scheduled broadcasting of a captioned version of Julia Child’s PBS show, “The French Chef,” in 1972. Shortly thereafter, WGBN began broadcasting a captioned version of ABC’s nightly news broadcast (Jensema, McCann, & Ramsey, 1996). Early television captions were open captions and visible to anyone watching the show, just like early captioned movies. Although open captions were easily accessible, they distracted viewers that did not need them. The solution was closed captioning, captions visible only to viewers with special equipment. First used the same year as the WGBN experiment, closed captioning has become the dominant captioning format and is used on television, in movie theaters, on DVD/Blu-ray, and online (NCI, 2016).

The FCC is tasked with developing regulations for closed captioning television, and most video programming distributors, including cable companies, satellite distributors, and broadcasters, are required to caption most of their online and broadcast programming (FCC, 2016a). CVAA expanded captioning to broadcast video redistributed via the Internet, and in 2014, the FCC ruled this requirement applies to individual video clips rather than just programs, particularly for news stories. Youngblood and Lysaght (2015) find many broadcasters ill prepared for the FCC mandate and less than 60% of news sites provided captions for sampled news clips. These results seem troubling given the ubiquitous nature of the Internet and data from the Pew Research Center (2016) indicating that 38% of adults report getting their news from digital sources (websites, apps, and social media).

Captioning can even be seen as an integral part of the media experience. Zdenek (2015) suggests program captioning is much more than simple transcription of spoken words and sound. Instead, captioning requires a primary understanding of the contextual nature of the soundscape. The job of the captioner is to provide the best possible interpretation of the program while providing the viewer with only those sound elements important to a fundamental understanding of the story. The captioner is an agent of rhetorical interpretation whose job is more complex than simply typing what is heard. Researchers (Downey, 2007; Rashid, Quoc, Hunt, & Fels, 2008) have suggested that captioning benefits a larger audience than just the deaf and hard of hearing. In addition, English as a Second Language (ESL) viewers and young children can benefit from captioning. Captioning can also help viewers decipher hard-to-understand dialogue and better understand what is going on onscreen (Zdenek, 2015).

To that end, it is imperative that media instructors help students to understand that captioning should be an integral part of the video production process. Beyond just discussing captioning in production courses, faculty should include a robust discussion of accessibility theory, ethics, aesthetics, and law courses. Including discussions and examples of the many benefits of captioning is a logical and important step toward creating a more inclusive media landscape. Some might argue that because much of our media will be published through YouTube, we have little need to worry about captioning thanks to its built-in automated captioning service. However, research indicates that automated captioning creates far too many errors and can cause a delay that separates captions from the scenes they go with, making the captions difficult to understand (Parton, 2016). Best practices would be for students to consider captioning as another part of the overall media aesthetic and to consider accessibility as not simply accommodating a minority but instead increasing the potential audience.

Incorporating captioning into the curriculum could be as easy as adding exercises to existing courses. For example, in a media law course, an instructor could ask students to examine the legal consequences/responsibilities for captioning video. In a media production course, instructors can provide students with examples of video that are poorly captioned and have the students watch the video with no audio. In short, adding a section addressing captioning need not be burdensome for instructors, and students will begin to see accessibility as a critical component to media creation rather than an afterthought.

Audio Description

Almost 20 million people in the United States are visually impaired. By 2020, 82% of Internet traffic will be video content (Cisco, 2016). As media educators, one of the questions we need to ask is how can we make visual content accessible to people who are blind and visually impaired. This is where AD comes in. AD—sometimes referred to as video description, described video, or visual description—is a technique to make visual media accessible to visually impaired people (Snyder, 2005). What is AD like though?

Letters pop out from a white background, then turn red, NETFLIX. In the middle of flickering pages of action comics appears the logo MARVEL in bold letters. A man walks cautiously between cars toward an accident. His face searching, traffic is stopped. Dozens of pedestrians rush to the scene. His eyes grow alarmed as he shoves his through the crowd. He kneels next to a young boy on the street.

What you just read is the AD of the opening scene from Netflix’s 2015 series, Daredevil. With the main character a blind superhero, Daredevil was a logical choice to be the company’s first show to include AD, but it is not alone. As of December 2016, Netflix has close to 240 AD titles (American Council for the Blind, 2016). AD is “narration added to the soundtrack to describe important visual details that cannot be understood from the main soundtrack alone” and “provides information about actions, characters, scene changes, on-screen text, and other visual content” (American Council for the Blind, 2016). Simply put, AD is a narration service that attempts to describe what a sighted person takes for granted.

AD was first developed in the United States. In 1974, Gregory Frazier, a graduate student at San Francisco State University, developed the concept of AD while working on his master’s thesis, Television for the Blind. However, AD did not start to come into regular use until 1981, when disability service organization Metropolitan Washington Ear collaborated with Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., to create and develop AD for the stage performance of “Major Barbara” (Benecke, 2004). During the mid-1980s, Metropolitan Washington Ear went on to produce more live-performance AD as well as developing AD cassette tours for the Statue of Liberty and Castle Clinton. At approximately the same time, the service began to be available for television programs and movies. AD was recorded on separate audio tracks accessible to patrons through a headset provided by the theater, or through a setting on the television. Museums also began offering special taped tours for visitors with visually impairments (Kirchner & Schmeidler, 2001). To further support the service, Congress, in 1998, amended the Rehabilitation Act by adding a Section 508 requirement that federal agency film, video, multimedia, and information technology productions include AD.

It was not until the early 2000s that the FCC began requiring broadcasters to include AD programming, calling for major broadcast networks and cable companies in the top 25 television markets to provide at least 50 hr of described programming per quarter (The AD, 2016). The FCC also called on movie theaters with digital projectors to offer description devices to moviegoers who requested them (Snyder, 2005). The FCC requirements were followed in 2010 by a CVAA mandate that the top four broadcast networks and top five cable channels in the leading 60 television markets provide at least 4 hr of AD per week, with the end goal being 100% national coverage (FCC, 2016b). While the implementation of AD is gradually on the rise in U.S.A, its adoption is even more widespread in some European countries (Arma, 2011).

Snyder (2005) emphasizes four elements in developing AD for television, DVD, theater, and museums: vocal skills, observation, editing, and language. He argued AD practitioners must really see what is perceived with the eyes, and then express those visuals with precise and creative language. Matamala and Orero (2007) expand on these ideas, adding AD practitioners need broad cinematographic, theatrical, and cultural knowledge and that AD needs to move from volunteer work to trained AD professionals. The AD format is still in flux and companies use different vocal techniques. For example, the AD for Daredevil uses a tone reminiscent of old radio shows. There has also been debate over whether AD should be voiced in first or third person. While some researchers (e.g., Fels, Udo, Ting, Diamond, & Diamond, 2006) have demonstrated a viewer preference for first person narration, AD seems to be more commonly handled through the third person, with the narrator acting as a substitute for the camera, much like the example from Daredevil.

Because we live in a society that relies heavily on audiovisual content for information creation and dissemination, visually impaired people are increasingly at risk of being excluded from social discourse. Hence, it is imperative that media instructors integrate AD into their curriculum and make students understand the significance of creating accessible visual content. With companies like Netflix building AD into their production process, industry clearly needs people to both write and perform AD. Continuing AD research should help guide the development of well-trained AD practitioners improving inclusion and access. The future of effective AD also lies in its universal acceptance. As faculty, we need to make sure students in media production classes understand the importance of making digital video content accessible to people with disabilities. As part of this, we need to have students “watch” video with AD, discuss best practices with students, and, when possible, give students the opportunity to practice writing and performing AD.

Web-Based Accessibility

Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the web and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) founder, recognized web accessibility’s ethical imperative early on, arguing universal access was a cornerstone of the web’s power and that “access by everyone is an essential aspect” (W3C, 1997). Early accessibility researchers echoed his concern, noting “people with disabilities are perhaps the single segment of society with the most to gain from the new technologies of the electronic age” (Kaye, 2000, p. 13). Yet, Internet use by Americans with disabilities is almost a third lower than those without a disability and 2% of Americans have a disability or other health problem they report as keeping them from engaging fully with the Internet (Zickuhr & Smith, 2012). Poor website accessibility can prevent people with disabilities from engaging in a wide range of critical online activities including accessing health and government information (e.g., Yu & Parmanto, 2011), conducting e-commerce tasks (e.g., Loiacono, Romano, & McCoy, 2009), accessing educational information (e.g., Fichten et al., 2009), and even applying for jobs (e.g., Lazar, Olalere, & Wentz, 2012). Furthermore, Liang, Xue, and Chase (2011) argue that the greater a disability an information-seeking user has, the more important perceived ease of use is to a user looking for information online, suggesting that someone with a disability who regularly encounters online-accessibility barriers may be less likely to leverage the Internet for finding information.

Researchers from a range of disciplines, including mass communication (Royal, 2004), technical communication (S. A. Youngblood, 2013), and information systems (Lazar, 2002), have argued for including accessibility in web design courses. Despite these calls, accessibility is still not well embedded in the web design curriculum (Lewthwaite & Sloan, 2016). Faculty approach accessibility from a variety of perspectives designed to increase student empathy, including providing statistics, simulating disabilities, and finding ways for students to interact with people who have disabilities that affect their use of the web. Other common pedagogical techniques include having students evaluate existing websites for accessibility and requiring students to test the accessibility of their own websites and to incorporate accessibility as part of the design process (Putnam, Dahman, Rose, Cheng, & Bradford, 2016).

Federal website accessibility is governed by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and these standards are often applied to organizations outiside the government. The federal government released the first Section 508 standards in 1998. In January 2017, however, the U.S. Access Board (2017) updated the Section 508 standards to match the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 guidelines. WCAG 2.0 has the advantage of addressing new technologies and is provides designers (and students) with more useful heuristics for evaluating their websites than older standards, beginning with “POUR” (W3C, 2008), the basic principles behind the guidelines:

Several sites let students conduct automated website accessibility testing on a page-by-page basis. AChecker.ca allows users to test a webpage against specific standards including Section 508 (1998), WCAG 1.0, and WCAG 2.0. WebAIM.org is another good resource for students and faculty alike, providing a color contrast tool to test text color against background colors (http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/), and WAVE—the web accessibility evaluation tool (http://wave.webaim.org), which provides a visual markup of a webpage, along with a list of possible errors. WebAIM is also a good source for teaching material, including simulations for dyslexia, low vision, screen readers, and distractibility, as well as videos of students with disabilities discussing how they interact with the web and what problems they have. The Firefox plug-in Fangs is also a helpful free tool for teaching accessibility, mimicking a screen reader, and turning a page into a text-based page (S. A. Youngblood, 2013).

Inculcating accessibility in students is important: Accessibility needs to be an integral part of the workflow, regardless of what the end product is. Early research (Lazar, Dudley-Sponaugle, & Greenidge, 2004) found that one reason web managers resisted accessibility was that they did not feel that they had adequate training and that accessibility was often an afterthought. As Zdenek (2009) points out, “on-the-fly” accessibility does not work well. Whether in the classroom or the workplace, the best chance for a product to be accessible is to include accessibility as part of the planning and design processes.

Website accessibility is not limited to webpages themselves. Audio-video material needs captioning and AD and online-accessibility issues are not just limited to web design classes. Print documents, such as Word and PDF files, are often ignored when it comes to accessibility. These documents, often created by people outside of the web development process, need to be accessible, particularly when delivered online. Much like webpages, making these documents accessible is not complicated, particularly when accessibility is an integral part of the document creation process—the PDF cannot be an image-only PDF (i.e., it should not be just a scanned image), images within the document need alternative text, and the document creator needs to set a logical reading order for the document. PDF forms, like HTML forms, need to have proper field descriptions. Tables need to use proper headings. Adobe provides an accessibility analysis tool within Acrobat Pro (Adobe, n.d.). Word documents can be made similarly accessible, particularly through the addition of alternative text for images, charts, and graphs, as well as through the use of descriptive hyperlinks, and through the proper use of headings and formatting of tables (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2015).

Conclusion

Teaching accessibility is the right thing to do. We need to prepare students to enter the workplace prepared to create and distribute accessible material, be it distributed via terrestrial broadcasting, satellite, cable, or the Internet. The application of ADA to the virtual and electronic world means a demand for employees who understand accessibility. Our students need to be aware of the legal requirements surrounding accessibility and how to find out what changes are coming. They need to be familiar with the United States Access Board, which provides recommendations and training for physical and virtual world accessibility, and with the FCC’s process for recommending change. Accessibility needs to be part of media law courses. Captioning and AD need to be part of video production and media writing courses. Accessibility needs to be part of document design courses as well as web design courses. Our students need to get accessibility.

Accessibility cannot be an afterthought. It needs to be part of the creative process. Television show captioning can change between broadcasts and again when a show is released online or on fixed media (Zdenek, 2015). Creating captions and AD as part of the creative process lets content creators better tell their stories. As Vanderheiden (1997) points out, building accessibility into a product from the beginning can make content more portable and flexible. Quality AD makes it possible for a television show to be redistributed as an audio-only product for consumers on-the-go. Captioned audio may make it easier for someone to understand the content of a speech. An accessible website may be more easily used by someone relying on voice controls, including those driving a car.

We need more research into how we teach accessibility and we need to share our pedagogical successes and failures, be it at conferences or in the professional literature. We need to find out how well accessibility is integrated into existing electronic media curricula. Much like Lazar et al. (2004) early survey of web managers, we need to examine why faculty are and are not talking about accessibility and find ways to encourage those discussions. We need to be good role models and make sure our own material is accessible. We need to help students develop the empathy to convince them that accessibility is “the right thing to do.”